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• Keywords: synthetic cell research, bottom-up synthetic biology, application, technology, interview

The journal Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology interviewed a group of experts in synthetic cell research to shed light on this narrow but promising field for our society. The questions focused on the definition of a synthetic cell, potential applications and the advantages of synthetic cell-based technologies over bioengineered cells, i.e. reprogrammed existing living cells.

The researchers interviewed

• Katarzyna (Kate) P. Adamala
  Department of Genetics, Cellular Biology, and Development, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, USA
• Marileen Dogterom
  Department of Bionanoscience, Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands
• Masahiro Takinoue
  Department of Computer Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan
  Living Systems Materialogy (LiSM) Research Group, International Research Frontiers Initiative, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan
• Petra Schwille
  Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried, Germany
• T-Y Dora Tang
  Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology & Genetics, Dresden, Germany
  Synthetic Biology, Department of Biology, University of Saarland, Saarbrucken, Germany
• Yuval Elani
  Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, London, UK
  FabriCELL, Imperial College London, Molecular Sciences Research Hub, London, UK

Please note that you must be a Nature subscriber to access the resource. For more information on this viewpoint article, please read our post “The future of synthetic cells”.